The historical memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction has
earned increasing attention from scholars. Only recently, however,
have historians begun to explore African American efforts to
interpret those events. With
Defining Moments, Kathleen
Clark shines new light on African American commemorative traditions
in the South, where events such as Emancipation Day and Fourth of
July ceremonies served as opportunities for African Americans to
assert their own understandings of slavery, the Civil War, and
Emancipation--efforts that were vital to the struggles to define,
assert, and defend African American freedom and citizenship.
Focusing on urban celebrations that drew crowds from surrounding
rural areas, Clark finds that commemorations served as critical
forums for African Americans to define themselves collectively. As
they struggled to assert their freedom and citizenship, African
Americans wrestled with issues such as the content and meaning of
black history, class-inflected ideas of respectability and
progress, and gendered notions of citizenship. Clark's examination
of the people and events that shaped complex struggles over public
self-representation in African American communities brings new
understanding of southern black political culture in the decades
following Emancipation and provides a more complete picture of
historical memory in the South.